ATHLETICISM, MYSTIQUE, and the chance to beat
someone up with a stick: UMass fencing club practice at Totman
Gym. (Ben Barnhart photo)

The tone of the voice
emanating from beneath Paul Sises black-mesh mask is in stunning
contrast to his actual words.

Attack, he says
softly, and waits until the students sabre taps his mask: just where
his forehead would be.

Again, says Sise.
Check your guard. And then: Beat in seconde 
second position, blade down  and they engage.

If any sport can be called
beautiful, fencing is it. The combination of grace, strength, and form;
the contestants in their fitted whites, or dueling jackets;
the metallic glint and click of blades. Sise 00G (he finished his
masters in geology last year) gliding forward and back on the six-foot
wide, 45-foot long strip that is the fencers field of
action, its limited space emblematic of the ideal of standing ones
ground.

Sophomore Sandy Lubben, her
off-hand held behind her back, has  whether shes
advancing or retreating  a wide smile visible behind the shadows
of her mask. Oh, are you kidding? she says when Sise tells
her their lesson is almost finished. I could go all night.
Limber, breathing evenly, she looks as if she could, too.

At UMass, fencing is
a club sport, and one of the rare ones with little if any precursor at
the high-school level. While a few members join with a year or more of
experience, the vast majority have none, says womens
coach and former grad student Brad Baker. In fact, 90 percent of UMasss
40 current fencers have gone through the grueling novice program within
the past two years, making them a very green team.

I didnt
know much about the sport until I took it up as a P.E. class at UMass,
says alumnus Evan Whitney 95, who lives in Cambridge and works at
Harvard. But when you put on the mask and pick up a weapon, you
really gain an appreciation for the sports intelligence and athleticism.
Whether youre interested in its artistic mystique or athletic challenge,
swords and fencing are pretty cool, and anybody can do it.

Swords are cool, at least
in the hands of the skilled and nimble. The three coaches here in a Totman
Gym practice room tonight  Sise, Baker, and novice coach Renee Coombs
99, who teaches physics at Westfield High  watch the team
practice warm-ups. Positions are held and broken, held again. Once the
dueling starts, they coach from the sidelines, critiquing, pulling students
out for individual lessons. The magic words  Guard; ready;
fence  are called out over and over by the director, fencings
term for referee.

Theres a reason for
the comparison: Classical dance owes much of its form to the 800-year-old
sport of swordplay. Some positions, such as basic position in fencing
and first position in ballet, are identical.

I like the one-on-one,
says Kyle MacQuarrie, a sophomore in biochemistry. Its a team
sport but its very much an individual sport. The team can win or
lose, but when youre out on the strip, its you.

Like many of the team members,
MacQuarrie had no previous experience  he joined simply because
he happened to wander through the Campus Center one day when the fencing
team had a table out and The Princess Bride on the VCR. Now, Pretty
much my life here at college is schoolwork and fencing, says MacQuarrie
as he pulls on a glove, getting ready for a bout. This past hour-and-a-half
I havent thought about my organic chemistry exam at all. Fencing
can consume me.

COOL CONTRASTS: mask, words, tone. (Ben Barnhart
photo)

Fencing has existed
at UMass, either as a club sport or as part of military training, for
125 years, offering competition against such schools as Boston College,
Army, and Harvard. As do other club sports at UMass, the team runs on
a tight budget. Away meets are a challenge, but as sabreist Lubben says,
Someone will have an aunt out there, we sleep on the floor, eat
lots and lots of pasta. Another trick is to make the equipment last:
Dueling whites can run close to $500 new, with weapon and mask adding
$200 to the bill. The canvas whites worn by the UMass team have been passed
along, year to year, cleaned and cleaned again.

Add to the teams tight
funding its problems of space: Though the fencers practice at Totman four
nights a week, only two nights are in a space suitable for dueling. The
other two practices are limited to conditioning. That means only four
to six hours a week of dueling and one-on-one lessons. It shows,
Baker says, though against club teams we tend to do fairly well.

When students don their whites
and masks, an interesting phenomenon occurs: Age, race, and gender largely
drop away. Its not brute strength, says Coombs. As
a female you can do well against men, although the genders are separated
in formal competition. Fencing is also a sport you can come back
to, adds Coombs. Age is not really an issue  its
experience that gets you far. For those who get hooked in college,
there are non-collegiate clubs across the country. The UMass coaches compete
through the U.S. Fencing Association, in which Sise, for one, has the
title of Moniteur d Escrime  instructor of fencing. Fencing
alumni and friends remain connected through an associate club, Friends
of UMass Fencing.

The courtliness you might
expect of fencing does exist. Its an aspect of the sport that Coombs
loves. Theres a salute in fencing, and you always shake hands
afterwards, she says. Its courteous. Im drawn
into it for the atmosphere.

Its fascinating to watch
a sport that manages courtesy even as an opponent is attacking. Opponents
politely critique one another during practice duels: Your footwork
was great, says one combatant in Totman. Youre retreating
too much, cautions another. Even as a fencer makes a point, the
opponent calls, Nice touch!

Above all, it seems a sport
without anger  though not without humor, plenty of it irreverent.
Team president Sean Kinnas, a junior in engineering, speaks cheerfully
about getting to beat someone up with a stick and not get arrested.
(Though in the next breath hes acknowledging the subcultural courtesy
of his sport: Its very congenial. Normally you wouldnt
be friends with your competitors, but Ive made good friends at MIT
and Dartmouth.)

When Kinnas pulls off his
whites later in the evening he reveals a T-shirt with a picture of a sword
piercing the front. On the back, the blade emerges with a flag emblazoned
UMass.